I close my eyes and stab myself in the heart. I push the plunger down before it hurts.
My insides grow wings and try to fly out of my mouth. I stick out a hand to catch myself as the world tips and tilts. The sweat covering me freezes, and I shiver violently. I get my legs under me. They shake, but they hold me up.
I drop the used syringe into the bleach-filled soaking sink. I grab a rag and wipe away my handprints that trail up and across the counter. I look behind me at the gurney I was strapped to. The sheets have already been stripped and put in a bucket filled with more bleach.
He likes things clean. And he’s thorough. That’s good for me.
I need a weapon. My teeth chatter as I look around. My brain unclogs and thoughts shoot through it. Knife. Ankle.
I reach down and, miraculously, it’s still there. He either didn’t notice it while he was strapping me down or he knew I’d never be able to reach it and didn’t bother to take the time to unbuckle it. It’s a good knife. I hold it in my hand and leave the barracks.
My body feels hollow, it’s so light. I move quickly but silently to a dwelling I know is somewhere on the outskirts of this camp. I need to go to Bo. I know that. But first, this. The thing I was made for.
Weeks in the woods have taught me how to move without sound. But it’s more than just practice. It comes naturally to me. Bo called me a hunter. Close. But not entirely right. I walk in Michael’s footsteps to cover my tracks. I leave no trace.
Michael doesn’t hear me enter his tent. He doesn’t see me as I cross his spartan room to where he’s standing, beside another bucket of bleach, holding his dirty shirt. I wait until he drops the shirt with my DNA on it into the bucket and turns around.
There must be ghosts in his eyes. I know what that’s like. He probably thinks I’m one of them, because even though he’s facing me now, he hesitates for a moment. All he does is squint and look at me as if he knew me long ago but can’t remember from where.
That split second of hesitation is all I need. I stab him in the neck. I touch him with nothing but the blade.
He seems to wake up. Clutching the wound with one hand, he lunges for me, spraying blood through his fingers. I step back, evading him. If this turns into a brawl, I’ve lost. I have no illusions about that. I plant a foot and brace myself. I know from butchering the deer how tough it is to get even the sharpest knife into a body. I push off my back foot to stab him in the chest.
He doesn’t know which wound to grab. Confused from the rapid blood loss, he goes back to the bucket and reaches for his dirty shirt. He drops it and makes a move towards a chair that’s supporting a pair of night-vision goggles and a large rifle with a red-feathered dart in it – the same night goggles and dart gun he used to take me down earlier, no doubt.
I stab him again before he can get to the chair, and he stiffens like a real boy turned back into wood.
And it’s done. I should be horrified by what I just did. Soul-sick with the thought of killing a human being. I’ve killed a man with my own hands, and all I feel is relief. The monster is dead. I tiptoe away from the dark, syrupy blood fanning out before me.
I know what I am now. No more lying to myself. No more tearing myself in two so I can hide one half of me from the other. I am a predator. But just because I have this sick gift doesn’t mean that I have to misuse it the way Michael did. The way Rob does. I can do better. I can be better. Bo will show me how.
Bo and Rob. They’re both waiting for me.
I exit
the tent and take the briefest of moments to orient myself. I’ve never tried to navigate through the woods in the dark. I almost take the night-vision goggles but think better of it. I’ve killed a man. I can take nothing and leave nothing, or it may become evidence against me. I can’t get lost. I can’t stumble and break a leg.
I can’t fail.
4 AUGUST. DEAD OF NIGHT
I run when there’s enough moonlight piercing the canopy to see, and I walk fast with my arms out when there isn’t.
I’m not sure how much time has passed. I don’t know when Rob set out, or what condition he was in when he left. I don’t even know if Michael was telling me the truth. Rob could be dead. He could have bled out after I cut him. But I doubt it.
Adrenaline doesn’t last forever. As the shivers turn into the shakes, my legs get heavier and clumsier. Bitter-smelling sweat soaks through my clothes, mats my hair, and smears tracks through the combination of pit filth and sprayed blood caking my skin. My heartbeat is erratic, and my breath is wheezy. Branches whip me. I fall. I get up. I keep going.
I wasn’t afraid when I faced Michael Claybolt. If he died or if I died, at least the world would be less one miscreation. Now I’m terrified, because the world can’t afford to lose someone like Bo.
My vision is blurring, and I don’t know if I’m still going the right way. I slow down and pivot. I think I see the place I hid after overhearing Sol accuse Bo of murder.
Poor Sol. She was just copying Raven, but she’s only seven. Following Bo, and then seeing him and me having sex must have scared her to death.
Rob. He’s waiting for me. He wants me to find him.
I see firelight flickering ahead, and I stagger towards it.
I force my fumbling body to move silently. I have to crouch down and crawl the rest of the way up the rise that surrounds Bo’s camp. I lie on my belly as I look over the rise and down into the bowl of Bo’s camp.